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It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

Samuel Butler

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Samuel Butler
Age: 66 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 4
Died: 1902
Died: June 18
Farmer
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
Writer
Notts
Cellarius
Parent
Offspring
Father
Legitimate
Music
Respectable
Like
Tune
Pregnancy
Tunes
Parents
Wise

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.
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[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.
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Nature. As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's most interesting productions-the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half.
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Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
Samuel Butler
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler
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Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
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Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
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The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
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It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
Samuel Butler
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
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To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
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They say the test of [literary power] is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, Can he name a kitten? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.
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There should be asylums for habitual teetotalers, but they would probably relapse into teetotalism as soon as they got out.
Samuel Butler
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Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
Samuel Butler
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A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Samuel Butler
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Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
Samuel Butler
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The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
Samuel Butler
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He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
Samuel Butler